Spring is coming! Spring is Coming!
Birdies, build your nests!
Weave together straw and feather
Doing each your best.
Spring is coming! Spring is coming!
Flowers are coming too.
Daisies, Lillies, Daffodillies
All are coming through.
Spring is coming! Spring is coming!
All around is fair
Shimmer, glimmer on the meadow
Joy is everywhere!
This week, we continued learning new spring themed poems and songs at our circle time. The class enjoyed the story of the Root Children who were awakened by Mother Nature at the start of the season, and immediately dressed in their floral costumes before painting the whole world in color. The class loved pretending to be root children as we used our colorful silks to paint the world with new spring colors ourselves. They also enjoyed using root children paper dolls to tell their own spring stories during their play or at the puppet theater!
The class enjoyed listening to Vivaldi's Spring while painting their own spring pictures. Ms. Katherine told a "color story" about a little bunny who came out and wanted to play with all of the beautiful spring colors. The colors each told him "You may play with us, but first you must dip your tail in the stream (dip the paintbrush in the water jar) and dry your tail on the nice green grass (dry the brush on a towel). This was a fun way for the class to practice keeping the colors bright and clean during watercolor painting, and they were so proud of their masterpieces!
We continued observing and documenting signs of spring, and adorning our nature shelf with more represent the season.
Other highlights of these two weeks have included:
* Telling stories about the squirrel and the red cardinal often spotted at our feeders! The class named the squirrel "Chip" and the cardinal "Cherry" and has started a series of stories (The Adventures of Chip & Cherry) that we've been creating bit by bit during lunch time, snack, and circle time! It's been so wonderful seeing the group collaborate as they tell stories a line at a time, jumping in whenever they feel inspired to build on another friend's idea. Next week, we plan to encourage them to dictate and illustrate their favorite Cherry & Chip stories by making mini books! We can't wait to see what they come up with. :)
* Learning about Passover and Easter traditions. We read several books about both holidays and heard from children about how they celebrate at home. We had a visit from Abrie's family to teach us more about the history and traditions of Passover, and the class loved singing, dancing to "Dayenu" and enjoying homemade matzoh!
* An Easter egg Scavenger Hunt: The class enjoyed being sent on a mission to find and sort treasures hidden in Easter eggs around the yard! They had so much fun they didn't even know they were practicing their reading, counting and spelling ;)
* Planting flower seeds and caring for them in the little pots they painted
* Celebrating Clara's 5th birthday!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
* Building giant birds nests and stick houses at Cook Memorial story time
* Baking banana bread, and enjoying our first spring picnics!
Monday March 27- Wednesday March 29:
Monday April 3- Wednesday April 5
